Sure, gas prices are up under Biden. They also rose under Trump. And we use less gas now.

As Republicans flail around to try to take the momentum away from the Harris-Walz ticket, some of their strategy is to re-run ads from 2 years ago, and complain about high gas prices. They somehow think Americans haven't noticed that gas prices have fallen significantly from their 2022.

One might argue that gas over $3 is still a significant burden on Americans in 2024. But that's not what the Energy Information Administration (EIA) is finding, as the EIA told us last month that Americans are spending a lower percentage of their take-home pay on gasoline than they were a decade ago.

A combination of falling real gasoline prices and increasing vehicle efficiency resulting from higher fuel economy in internal combustion engines, as well as shifts to hybrid and battery electric vehicles, means we expect aggregate gasoline expenditures will be less in 2024 and 2025 compared with 2023,” the EIA noted in the [Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO)].

“Additionally, rising incomes mean U.S. aggregate expenditures on gasoline will represent about 2.3 percent of disposable income in 2024 and 2.2 percent in 2025, which would be slightly less than the 2015–23 average and approaching two percentage points less than the 2005–14 average,” it added…

The EIA’s latest STEO projects that regular-grade gasoline in the U.S. will average $3.41 per gallon in 2024 and $3.47 per gallon in 2025. Regular-grade gasoline came in at $3.52 per gallon in 2023, the STEO showed.

Broken down quarterly, the EIA expects regular-grade gasoline in the U.S. to average $3.49 per gallon in the third quarter of this year, $3.33 per gallon in the fourth quarter, $3.35 per gallon in the first quarter of next year, $3.58 per gallon in the second quarter, $3.55 per gallon in the third quarter, and $3.38 per gallon in the fourth quarter, the STEO revealed.

“We forecast regular-grade gasoline prices will average around $3.50 per gallon in 2025 and gasoline consumption will average 8.9 million barrels per day,” the EIA said in its July STEO.

And if you look at average US gas prices over the years, you’ll see that cost of a gallon of gasoline rose brisky from the multi-year lows we enjoyed in early 2016 (Thanks Obama?), peaking at $2.96 a gallon around Memorial Day 2018, and was still at $2.86 as late as May 2019.

Even with a decline in prices from Summer 2019 through Winter 2020, we still had a significant 4-year increase in the price for a gallon of gas during the pre-COVID Trump years.

Average regular gasoline prices, US
Feb 2016 $1.764
Feb 2020 $2.442 (+38.4%)

That 38% increase over 4 years is more than what the price of gas has gone up in the last 5 years. You know, back in August 2019, when Donald Trump was saying we had “the greatest economy ever”, the Fed was cutting rates, and no one had heard of COVID-19.

Average regular gasoline prices, US
Aug 2019 $2.621
Aug 27, 2024 (courtesy AAA) $3.350 (+27.8%)

Even the 73 cent increase in a gallon of gas over the last 5 years isn’t very different than the 68 cents a gallon that gas prices increased in the 4 years before COVID shutdowns. Sure, I'm kind of cherry-picking this. But I'd also point out that if you said the average increase in gas prices was 5.5% a year for the last 5 years, you'd shrug and not find it to be a big deal.

In addition, gas supplies are as plentiful as they were during the last half of the 2010s, and Americans are still using less gas now than they did during the pre-COVID Trump years.

So if you hear any GOP complaining about gas prices being over $3, remind them that 2022 is far over, and that this country is in a much better situation to combat those gas prices because we don't use nearly as much gas as we did during the Trump Administration. And even though most MAGAs won't admit it, many of us aren't having gas costs be any more of a burden to us than they were 5 years ago, and less than they were a decade ago.